Meet Brett Rein | Therapist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Brett Rein and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Brett, how do you think about risk?
Risk taking boils down to one question for me typically: do I feel that the potential happiness in the unknown is greater than the comfort I currently feel? That has meant different things at different times. The first risk I took came after reading the book “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch. The author was a Carnegie Mellon professor who was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. He gave his last lecture and wrote the subsequent book on how he lived his life until 47 rather than speaking about death. He shared stories including being an imagineer at Disney and winning the biggest prizes at the carnival. He said he wanted the book to be a blueprint on how to live life for the kids he was leaving behind. This encouraged me to begin living my life in that same manner. I had always been an athlete and placed a strong priority on training in uniquely challenging ways. I looked up a list someone created of the top ten most challenging races in the world. Two were located in the U.S. – Badwater 135 (135 mile race through death valley) and a race called The Death Race in Vermont: a race with no start time, no end time, a gear list you receive a week prior to start, and no race length. It could be 12 hours long, it could be 80+ hours long and can involve running, hiking, digging for pennies in the snow (Vermont winter), carrying a sandbag up a mountain over and over, submerging in frozen bodies of water, and any other horrible thing you can imagine. I started off quite well – after going through a day and a night, the sun rose and I was tied for 2nd place. The problems started when I got lost in the woods for five hours with the guy I was tied with. We eventually found our way to a highway twenty miles from basecamp and hitchhiked back. Long story short, I ended up passing out on the side of a mountain with hyperthermia, hypoglycemia, and a few other complications. After being released from the hospital, I almost immediately signed up for another Death Race, this time in Mexico. I had to finish what I started. After running past wild bulls and climbing mountains in an unknown location in Mexico, I finished the death race at 24 years old in 31 hours. I was elated. I fought demons and won and found something new in myself as a result. The risk was real, and the outcome was greater. The result was always being willing to take the risk of failing because even when I fail, I knew I would find success later by constantly pushing my limits. That mindset helped me to travel the world, do a homestay in a small village in Nicaragua, live on farms in Australia, teach at a yoga retreat in Thailand, climb Mount Ruapehu (better known for being Mt. Doom in Lord of the Rings) in New Zealand, swimming twelve miles across Lake Tahoe in the middle of the night, running Rim to Rim to Rim in the Grand Canyon, doing a ten day vipassana meditation, and so many other adventures. I moved across the country from New Jersey to Durango, Colorado where I didn’t know anyone. I lived in my car for two months while sorting things out. While there, I started a second masters program to be a therapist. After being a teacher previously, a fitness coach, a high school cross country and hockey coach, and a yoga teacher, I realized I didn’t feel fulfilled to my core. Making the choice to be a therapist meant I also had to make the choice to heal from my own childhood trauma so I put in the work on myself in a new way. I started as a school counselor during Covid which really deteriorated my mental health. I made the choice to check myself into a hospital for a week during winter break which prompted me to make some changes in my life. Being unhappy made me take the risk to leave a stable job with a steady, low paycheck to go into the unknown, unstable world of private practice. I first joined a group practice with a friend but I was giving a large percentage of what I was earning back to the practice so I had a bit more of a safety net but my earnings were capped. Last May, I made the final leap into my own practice where I have thrived for almost a year now. It allowed me to buy my first house which has provided me with a new kind of peace. It has all been scary as has every other risk I have taken but as I have proven, I will always find a way to be successful or turn a failure into something even more beautiful. I am a time travel nerd (where are my Whovians at?!). In my mind, there are Brett’s running all around the world at different times figuring it out, trying new things, meeting new people, helping people, failing, succeeding, finding happiness and sadness and hope and at times feeling hopeless that nothing would work out and somewhere way back, there is a little boy sleeping in a closet with a baseball bat to hide from the monster outside of it. I’d like to think that I’ve made all of the different versions of me across space and time proud with where I ended up.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Simply put: I keep it real. I don’t put on an act for anyone who comes into sessions with me. I have worked with thousands of people over the years in different settings. I know what has worked for me and I know what has worked for others and that one size does not fit all. I bring my true self into sessions and build a relationship with my clients. I truly care for all of them and don’t bullshit them. I call them out, help them to build goals and be accountable to them, and don’t let them settle for less than they deserve. I also help them to build communication skills, confidence around having hard conversations, and give them love, support, and grace always. I never want them to be dependent on me and people often slow down once progress has been made or the seas have calmed. In the words of the twelfth doctor from Doctor Who, “Never be cowardly. Hate is always foolish. Love is always wise. Always try to be nice, but never fail to be kind.” I am most proud of the fact that I have people that put their trust in me to help them and that I bring the best of what I have for those people every day. I facilitated a successful teen peer support group for a year and we still meet when they are home from college. I facilitate a Men’s Group which I look forward to once per month where a group of amazing men talk about real things and don’t hold back. I wouldn’t say any of this is easy but I feel so fulfilled by what I do that it feels easy to overcome things when they come up. I adjusted my work schedule to be able to take Wednesdays off which helped with some burn out I was feeling last year. I have learned that it is important to have boundaries around my free time, that I can’t help everyone and not every potential client who reaches out to me is the right fit. I have also learned that no matter how much work I have done to overcome negative thought patterns, I still occasionally assume the worst and get worried that everything I’ve built will fall. I am able to remind myself that I have always found my own way out of the woods and that I will continue to always find a way. It is always okay to reach out for help from colleagues who deal with similar situations. And ultimately, when you treat people the way you want to be treated, you end up with a lot of positive word of mouth which keeps the business going in a positive direction and that as time goes on, I just need to trust the process and keep doing what I am doing while also learning and evolving. I’d love the world to know that working with me means keeping it real, always coming from a place of love and growth, and that I care. I have been through dark times at several different points in my life and have had to put in a lot of work into myself to find peace. I like to think of the feelings of depression and anxiety and other challenging mental health diagnoses as their own places in our minds. When you’re in it, you can feel stuck there, like there is no way out. As a therapist, I feel I have the ability to travel to those places with someone as a visitor or possibly a guide to be there with them, to help them to navigate that world, build a better world for themselves, and then safely travel back to my own world to help the next person and then to enjoy my life outside of work too.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
When my best friend came to visit me, I took him into the mountains for some leaf peeping. It’s Colorado, I moved here for the mountains and anyone who visits me can be sure to end up there. There are so many mountain towns that I love. Durango and the four corners including Silverton, Telluride, and Our, will always have a special place in my heart having lived in Durango. I also love Crested Butte and Leadville but I’m not too picky when it comes to mountain towns. Leaf peeping is my favorite but I also love wild flower season and when avalanche danger is low, I love winter hiking and find that to be possibly the most peaceful kind of hiking. I don’t really eat out much and I don’t drink alcohol so I am probably not the person to ask for those types of recommendations but if I had to give one, I love the breakfast burritos at Cafe 13 in Golden and I love Woody’s for pizza in Golden. It is worth noting that people coming to visit Colorado for the mountains should practice “Leave No Trace” and should be mindful of parking lots being full, not littering, and treating the wildlife with respect.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
It is challenging to name just one shoutout or inspiration as so many people and books have helped me to become the person I am today. Different people were important at different points of my journey and it is hard to say one person had a bigger impact than the others. I struggled a lot in my teenage years with substances and reckless behaviors. I began working with a trainer, Mark Puttenvink, who taught me discipline and working hard were the way forward for me. He became the first person I opened up to about parts of my childhood. He was a former NHL strength and conditioning coach and used the example of a well-known player to tell me if I didn’t find a way to sort it out, ten years from now, I’d be an angry man with no control over my emotions. That player lost his career due to that and I didn’t want that for myself so I committed to making changes to how I approached healing in college and beyond. I got clean by 20 years old and started focussing on fitness and hard work as a way forward. I mentioned the book “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch earlier and I feel like that book was part of my origin story to live my life in a way that I was always striving for impossible goals. That book inspired me to sign up for The Death Race and to sign up for my mission trip to Nicaragua. Andy Weinberg, the race director of the Death Race, reached out to me after I failed the winter Death Race and told me he loved my attitude and wanted to see my succeed so I should come try again in Mexico where I found success. The leader of the Nicaragua trip inspired me to go down the path of being a yoga teacher. My yoga teacher trainer, Brittany Bamrick, inspired me to do a 10 day vipassana meditation where I decided to move to Australia. I WWOOFed in Australia meaning I lived on farms. One of the families I stayed with, Penny Beaumont and Bruce Kaldor, taught me how to live off of the land, find peace, and that to listen more closely to the universe because it will give you a jolt when you are off of your path. For me, I wanted to do impossible physical challenges like stand up paddle boarding 500 miles down the coast of Australia in order to share my story and give meaning to things I had gone through. That message eventually led to me changing course and going down the counseling path where I could use my experiences to help people individually without having to destroy myself in the process. I also have to mention the book “Wild” by Cheryl Strayed as it helped me to find peace in the unknowns of life, that “seeing the fish beneath the surface was enough.” Emily Garcia, a therapist in Colorado, invited me to join her practice and gave me the freedom to build my practice. The therapist I went to during darker times, Linda Stilling (Instilling Light), helped to be with me through an extremely lonely and difficult time and Deirdre Fraller (psychiatric nurse practitioner and owner of Owl and Eagle Health and Wellness) guided me through Ketamine Assisted Therapy which helped to shift some of my perspectives of my childhood and dating life which eventually helped me to meet an amazing woman, partner, and adventure buddy named Timi. She is an inspiration in how caring she is for both humans and animals and nature, and she feels like home for me. I would not be where I am now without any of these people. And I also need to shoutout the amazing friends I’ve had over the years. I’ve been fortunate to have amazing ones. Ryan Nolan was my best childhood friend who always stood by my side even when I was struggling and always treated me like family and gave me a place to be during holidays. Brian Lewis was my best college friend and also became family along with his wife, Danielle Lewis. Derek Brinkkman and Yitzy Sontag were my adventure buddies who I have had so many spectacular adventures with. My cousin Gabe Rein inspired me with his own adventures and taught me the importance of being willing to turn around to adventure another day. The Ultra House in Durango led by Anthony Kunkel gave me a family in Durango and changed the way I approached racing – to lead with love instead of anger. And Miguel Medina, another member of the Ultra House and extremely accomplished athlete taught me the importance of putting down roots which ultimately led to me putting down roots here in Arvada. And lastly, Justin Noska and his wife Heather Noska became my friends when I got out of the hospital a couple of years ago knowing I was in a tough place. They never judged me and always made me feel at home which helped to build my confidence back up. He is opening up his own gym, MADabolic, shortly in RINO! And my dog, Harley, of course who is my best friend, is loving beyond measure, is my work partner as she is a certified therapy dog, and is my adventure buddy. She is always ready for the next adventure. Thank you to all who have been a part of this wild ride.

Website: https://www.brettreintherapy.com

Instagram: milesfromordinary_

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brett.k.rein/

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